Organizing for America | Michael Dover's Blog: What Next for Progressives of Obama?

What Next for Progressives of Obama?

By Michael A. Dover - Dec 22nd, 2008 at 2:30 pm EST

Also listed in: Progressives for Obama | Social Workers Organizing for America

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By Michael A. Dover
mdover@umich.edu

This is in response to the proposal by Carl Davidson and Bill Fletcher at:
http://progressivesforobama.net/discussion-on-our-future/ and on the Progressives for
Obama yahoogroups list serve.

Interesting proposal, Carl and Bill. One operative statements seem to be: "Progressives
for Obama is in a position to play a catalytic role in moving forward in a major way." I
did read the final report written by Carl, emphasizing how many hits on the website,
etc., but it seemed to me a bit overestimated. The number of endorsers wasn't huge, and
the final/current number of participants on this group isn't vast either. Yes, when the
media was looking for things to say about the left's approach to the campaign, we got a
little coverage.

And it was nice to think someone somewhere in the campaign was listening. I for one
succumbed to that when David Plouffe came out with a call for folks to go "all in"
between then and election day, a couple of months after my posting to P4O of that title.
But I dismissed the temptation to give more credence to my influence than called for,
something we might try to avoid as we discuss what's next.

Another operative statement is: "Left-progressive defines the political orientation,
essentially broad agreement with the principles of the initial call to 'Progressives for
Obama", in combination with, "First, already mentioned, is a common political orientation
mentioned above."

I for one saw little evidence on this list of anything resembling such a common outlook,
either towards the campaign or in terms of any conceptualization of what P4O was all
about. In general, since the 1991 split in the left, eclecticism has been the order of
the day. This was a positive thing at the time, but there are costs to eclecticism,
including the inability to garner unified action but most importantly the lack of
evolution of coherent theory and strategy. See my theory of the fates of social movement
organizations below.

All along, in P4O, one issue has been, to what extent "left-progressives" should work in
one of the following ways:

1. Within the Obama campaign as individuals,

2. Within the campaign as Progressives for Obama in the group of that name within the
Obama website (which ended up poorly utilized)

3. Independently as part of various established groups such as Move-On or PDA or various
union or professional association PACs or in one of the non-partisan voter groups,

4. Independently within Progressives for Obama (but again, despite the report of our vast
influence, was there a single organized Progressives for Obama actual group on the ground
doing anything? I'm forgetting from Carl's report.)

5. Independently as part of an ad hoc groups established to fill gaps in the
effectiveness of the official campaign (as we did in Michigan and Ohio, mainly in Ohio,
with www.concerneddemocrats.org).

6. Within other local campaigns that were truly supporting/coordinating with the top of
the ticket OR within state/county/local Democratic parties, which may have printed and
distributed as many yard signs as did the campaign (I'd like to see the data on that.)

As we answer the question, What Next for Progressives for Obama, it would be valuable to
try to ascertain to what extent each of us in Progressives for Obama as a whole did one
or more of these 6. And then and only then to answer the question of what next based on
that analysis. Why not throw up a quick survey of members of Progressives for Obama to
see what people did then and what people think now?

I'll start with myself, commenting on each of the above:

(1) Within the campaign: I did as much as I could as an individual donor and volunteer
within the campaign, given I live in and work in two states and do a lot of commuting.
Also, donated 500 buttons and bumper stickers to the Cleveland State students for Obama
group and another 500 to the East Cleveland campaign operation, since they had few/none
of their own!

(2) Within the campaign in the website's P4O group: Made a big deal out of when I joined
P4O of the need to belong to both the within campaign and independent grouping, so I
cross posted my postings including my Open Letter to Democratic Candidates which I also
send out on various list serves calling for more support for the top of the ticket by
Democratic candidates. I also posted my work on the nature of progressive pragmatism
(see the Nation's Christopher Haye's analysis at
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081229/hayes, and see the widespread consternation and
confusion on left list services since the election, as a liberal pragmatist
President-elect with progressive leanings takes office). See by campaign blog at
http://my.barackobama.com/page/dashboard/private. Carl was nice enough to become my
friend, thanks Carl! But despite posting a picture of myself and Giselle, I was flop in
the social networking category. Also, I found that no matter how hard I tried, my nearly
$1500 in donations in like 20 different efforts wouldn't seem to aggregate to the P4O
group or even count for myself, which I attribute to confusion over the MI and OH
varieties of me. But P4O did as a group raise $24 and had 110 members.

(3) Within established independent groups: I avoided Move-on as I felt that it could hurt
Obama with it's self-serving promotion of its own name on its bumper stickers and signs;
it might play in Ann Arbor but not in Adrian, and I actually joined PDA formally but
didn't get active; I was also supported DSA endorsed House candidates in Michigan,

(4) Within our P4O: I was active with the Progressives for Obama, becoming a monthly
sustainer to support Carl's work and endorsing the call and I was active on the list
serve, which I noticed attracted quite a few folks who seemed more critical that
supportive of Obama, I guess reflecting the tradition of "critical support" from the left
for Democratic candidates,

(5) Within ad hoc groups: Founded Concerned Democrats of MI and OH, which advocated with
local and statewide candidates and party leaders to do more to ensure that grassroots
Democratic candidates supported the top of the ticket. We did individualized emails to
all Ohio state House candidates, follow-up calls focused on rural and suburban candidates
who weren't incumbents, and did a mailing of a couple of thousand buttons and bumper
stickers directly to the candidates, which was well-received. Tactic: asking the
candidates to wear the Obama buttons 24/7 from then until election day "except when you
are in the shower",

(6) Within local campaigns or DP: Door to door work supporting a DSA endorsed House
candidate in Michigan; supported my own MI House candidate, distributing Obama buttons
along the way, joined the Ohio DP and renewed my dues to the MI party (the least I could
do in that they listened to my/our concerns about lack of support from some candidates
for the top of the ticket.

In the process I neglected much else in my life in order to make good on my pledge to go
"all in between now and election day."

What next? Why not consider the fate of the same 6 approaches?

(1) Within the campaign, it seems to me that if the campaign is truly interested in
keeping volunteers together and having an ongoing operation, there is some value in
responding positively when there are calls to do house meetings, attending meetings,
etc.. Haven't done it yet, didn't on 12/13-14 but probably will. I remember well from
work to re-elect Dutch Morial in New Orleans in the early 1980s how fiercely the power
structure could re-unite to prevent the re-election of the first African-American to hold
real power in national office. I've spoken to some former and current staffers and
volunteers and they are very positive about the need to hold things together. It's a bit
confusing with the proliferation of websites but worth the effort. I still feel as a
matter of principle if we are really P4O we should respond to Obama's early call not to
operate unnecessarily through independent groups. As a matter of fact, if our P4O were
really diverting serious energy outside the campaign, I wouldn't have supported it, but
it was clearly mainly a discussion group that (as one Obama staffer a-n-d one P4O leader
consulted for advice said about our Concerned Democrats operation, it "couldn't do any
harm."

(2) Within the campaign's P4O list: I'm told these lists will remain active; there is
still lots of discussion on Social Workers for Obama, started by my NOLA friend Russ
Henderson, but I don't see much activity on the campaign's P4O list, nor was there much
interplay between the official and unofficial P4O groups, and I think that's a shame. I
doubt anyone's interested in submerging ourselves, but personally if we are really for
Obama and the campaign wants ongoing groupings, I don't see why we shouldn't take
seriously the possibility of moving into and operating out of that list. Less grandiose
perhaps, but one way to stay active and less likely to attract the left fringe who wants
to spent its time attacking Obama.

(3) Within established groups: I do think PDA is an option; I get it's OH postings and I
like the idea that it is a real group related to a real party. In OH, the state party
Chair seems very open to independent groupings. Doing this even en masse wouldn't be the
worst thing and reminds me of a couple of key historical events on the left. In the
1950s thousands of leftists who had decided that support for groups like the Progressive
Party hadn't proved effective joined none other than the Cold War liberal influences
Americans for Democratic Action and by the 1960s and 1970s ADA has very real influence on
the Democratic Party and the nation. I think that such a strategy might be in order now,
and PDA would be an effective vehicle; if there are things we don't like about it, why
not change it? Clearly, some counterweight to the DLC is needed. It goes within saying
that we should still be active in various other large issue oriented groups and groups
within professions and unions.

(4) Within our P4O group: That, of course, is the question. I do see the value of
keeping some kind of network together. I'm not about to cut off my monthly sustainer
just yet, and truly appreciate the role Carl and others have played in this. It's been
wonderful how many of us who haven't seen or communicated with each other in years have
been brought together in part by P4O. I'm the author of a distributed but like many
things unpublished piece on the fate of social movement organizations. I contend that we
have what I call "paired fates." We tend to choose two of the following fates and
ambivalently swing between some two of them. The fates are:

Dispersion - P4O dissolves in one way or another, either from organizational death or
from merger. It's members most likely lose any sense of cohesion or identity based on
the previous P4O affiliation.

Density - P4O stagnates, throwing off folks at its periphery and failing to attract other
members, but retaining enough members committed to survive one way or another. It
focuses on ensuring a common political outlook to the exclusion of eclecticism. The
membership would be dense in the sense that there are rather long-standing and close ties
among the remaining members. But the organization would not play a major role in any
sense due to its small size and increasing isolation.

Drift - This metaphor is perhaps one way of describing a process consistent with the
semi-permanent network option. To understand and consider this option, it's important not
to see the word drift in a pejorative light. Historically, folks on the left have often
committed the voluntarist error: a view in the world as something our organization could
change, and to the extent we still hold to such a view, we may see the very word drift as
distasteful. Using the "drift" metaphor, the organization would still be P4O in a formal
sense, with a website, a discussion list, and perhaps even formal dues, which actually I
would favor where it to continue, and with one list restricted to formal members.
Members of P4O would also be active in other groups throughout the spectrum of the above
table, but our main contribution would be not as an organization but as individual
activists in these other organizations and causes and to each other as members of this
network, through interpersonal relationships, education, and limited recruitment and
socialization into our tradition. We would n-o-t see ourselves as an coordinating group
and certainly not as any vanguard. We would all commit to reading every word of each
other's long postings! (:}

Dynamism - This is a direction in which P4O grows and flourishes and truly becomes
something akin to the maximum version of what Carl and Bill proposed. But essentially it
would mean that we find a way to grow and be more formal and play a serious role.
Ambitious.

Of the four options, I tend to ambivalently swing between drift and dynamism, and to
dislike dispersion and density. But when asked to choose, I tend to favor drift, as I
think that it is the fate which leads to organizational survival. If we could live to
fight again, even if just in 2012, I would be happy to continue to see that happen.

One idea: I presented a workshop on grassroots organizing in 1992 in Berkeley, at which I
presented an idea I've since tried to implement but haven't had a chance to do on
anything other than an experimental small scale. It's called Pairing and Intentional
Leadership Development. The idea is that you build or rebuild the organization, formally,
with a unit of organization that is not the individual, but the diverse pair. 2, 4, 6,
8, you build the organization based upon pairing. It helps if the founding pair is
diverse. In this instance, Carl and Bill are a diverse pair; what if we re-built P4O
from the ground up as a diverse membership organization based upon the pairing principle.
I've written a draft of a paper on this which I could share with anyone interested and
have done some preliminary database work within Filemaker Pro which I think shows how it
is possible to build an organization that could have the pair as the membership unit and
still communicate effectively with each pair. There are lots of issues about this issue
of pairing and in my own organizing I've done some consultation and have some anecdotal
organizing examples I could share. The opportunity to implement the pairing principle in
re-building P4O would motivate me to be involved, for sure.

(5) Within ad hoc groups: A couple of us who have been involved in Concerned Democrats
have talked about whether we should fold it up. We probably will largely due to some
personal/political points I make below. But thinking back to another historical example,
I recall the Reform Democratic clubs of NYC in the 1970s. They played a very positive
role in supporting the election of progressive candidates like Bella Abzug, early gay
candidates, and in supporting important causes. President-elect Obama has spoken
recently of the distinction between people who go into politics for service and the
others. I think it would be valuable to form Concerned Democrats or Reformed Democrats
clubs at the local or state level that would work within the Democratic Party. One good
example has been Progressive Democrats of Washtenaw County, one of whose founders, Tim
Colenback (who is a fellow member of Social Welfare Action Alliance) was later elected
Chair of the Ann Arbor Democratic Party and recently stepped down from that post. I
seriously think that if there were clubs that had serious codes of ethics and worked for
ethics reforms including truly serious ethics requirements for candidates endorsed by the
DP, more serious than any law that is in effect or might be put into effect, that it
would do wonders to advance progressive political action. Let's face it, the corrupt
regulars and opportunists and what's in it for me folks are still major forces in
Democratic Party politics, and it doesn't have to be that way. If in addition to groups
like PDA, there were such semi-independent clubs of dues-paid DP members in major cities
and states, they could have a real impact, as did the Reform clubs of the 1970s.

(6) I plan to keep up my dues in the DP's of MI and OH, continue to selectively support
elected officials in my districts and elsewhere, and to support DSA endorsed candidates
and belong to DSA (Democratic Socialists of America). My analysis of what I saw happen
in MI and OH is that as effective as the Obama campaign was, the DP stepped up to the
plate, buying huge quantities of bumper stickers, buttons and yard signs (especially yard
signs) from www.demstore.com and other outlets. In some areas of OH, rural DPs banded
together to buy them since they couldn't get them from the campaign. In some large
counties in OH, county parties saved the day with these purchases. This is an untold
story of the campaign if you ask me; the role of the Democratic Party leadership in
stepping up to the plate nationally and locally; Dean himself hasn't gotten enough
credit. The leaderships both nationally and in the states were well aware and when
pressed admitted to problems with candidates not supporting the top of the ticket and did
much to try to counter that but put their $$ to work making sure that lack of O/B
materials wasn't the excuse that could be used to distance oneself from the top of the
ticket. This was particularly apparent in the last 2 months of the campaign.

This said, in addition to talking about what's next, I think it would be helpful to talk
about next time (2012).

Next time, we may not be able to count on the Obama re-election effort to be as
grassrootsy and effective as it was this time, and we should make efforts to ensure that
there are contracts and plans in place to make absolutely sure that if David Plouffe or
whoever is still of the view that visuals don't count there are plans in place to make
sure we mass produce magnetic car signs, buttons, 8"by13" window signs of the size that
would fit within the typical vertical rectangular window pane area and which I think are
easier to distribute and harder to steal than typical yard signs), etc.. We shouldn't be
dependent upon the Obama campaign for these materials but they should be authorized
materials; the Obama campaign was notoriously late in delivery, and I wasted several
hundred $$ on materials that arrived literally days before the election that were ordered
6 weeks earlier. The campaign did deliver 1000 buttons on time at $.35 apiece as
advertised; www.demstore.com was quicker but late on one order for bumper stickers. In
general this problem of shortages of materials has to be planned for next time.

Nuff said.

All of this is complicated by the fact that I claim to have retired from organizing after
40 years to focus on my writing and teaching, to which some reply, "fat chance, it's in
your blood.") I guess it depends on the meaning of the word organizing. If it means
trying to get other people to do what you think should be done by making phone calls,
organizing meetings, sending out mailings, participating in committees, initiating
grassroots outreach, etc., I'm still on the wagon since 11/4. It's hard, but I'm trying.
Would this posting be a relapse?

I did say I still want to write. And if someone else organizes something I might show up
and do something. Volunteering and even joining are things I still want to do. But no
hard stuff. Although I had been radicalized and become active as early as the Fall 1966
editorials I wrote as a freshman Michigan Daily writer against the Vietnam war, it wasn't
until the assasinations of early 1968 that I fully dropped out and entered into the cause
with all my efforts. And although there are some on this list who top 50 or more years
of activism, I think that 40 and out wouldn't be the worst thing.

I've recently stepped back from all but being co-treasurer of the Social Welfare Action
Alliance, the radicals in the professions group for social workers and other human
service workers which I helped found in 1985. I suppose I could always come out of
retirement later. I certainly will plan on playing a role in 2012, and would love it if
we can find a way for a sane and committed P40 group to be held together in the meantime.
Knowing this was possible would do wonders to permit me to enjoy my retirement....

Michael A. Dover, MSW, Ph.D.
Ann Arbor and Cleveland
(734)645-6261
mdover@umich.edu

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It's Too Long! | Report to Admin

By Richard Dec 22nd 2008 at 3:20 pm EST (Updated Dec 22nd 2008 at 3:20 pm EST)

Your post is too long although I agree with a lot of your message.Next time keep it short and sweet.

Re: It's Too Long! | Report to Admin

By mindcontrolassidiot Dec 22nd 2008 at 4:09 pm EST (Updated Dec 22nd 2008 at 4:09 pm EST)

richard, what are you a moron? this guy wrote the only good thing on this site all day, go back to sleep you moron,,too long ! your brain is too short jackass !

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